


Our Street

by northerntrash



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, Family Fluff, M/M, Regional Holidays, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21724432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northerntrash/pseuds/northerntrash
Summary: “Well, it is very nice to meet you,” Bard said, after a moment. “And I offer my warmest welcome to the street. I do hope you enjoy it.”A year in the life of strangers.
Relationships: Bard the Bowman/Thranduil
Comments: 25
Kudos: 190
Collections: Have A Happy Hobbit Holiday 2019





	Our Street

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morvidra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morvidra/gifts).



> My Have a Happy Hobbit Holiday assignment for Morvidra – I hope this fulfils your request and gives you as much pleasure as it gave me to write it!
> 
> If you can cope with sentimental soft-rock, consider listening to This Year’s Love by David Gray when you read this.
> 
> And of course, to all my readers – may you have safe holidays and a peaceful New Year, wherever and whoever you are.

** January **

“What are you looking at, Dad?”

“New neighbours, I think.”

He could feel the chill of the outside against his skin even through the double glazing, the frost still catching the sunlight in the garden despite the fact that it was almost midday. Outside a large truck had pulled up in front of the empty house down the street, and a sequence of men were carrying boxes and furniture from the back inside the house, though Bard couldn’t for the life of him figure out which of them, if any, were the actual homeowners.

It would be good to have new people on the street. The empty house had been rather noticeable over the holiday period, when Christmas lights and trees glowed in the windows of every building around it. Their quiet, suburban street had been very festive, far different from the neighbourhood of the city apartment they had lived before moving here just a year before.

A car pulled up down the street as Bard took a sip of his quickly cooling coffee, and a young boy about the same age as his own son threw himself out of the car, bright blonde hair standing out even in the dull, grey light. He was followed at a slightly more reserved pace was a girl perhaps a year younger, her own long auburn hair pulled back in a long braid. She said something to the boy, who went immediately to the boot of the car, opening it up and started pulling out bags, pulling a face at the girl that made Bard hide a smile in his coffee.

It was easy enough to recognise annoyed sibling behaviour, even if he couldn’t hear what was being said.

More children was a nice sight: the street was made up of families with sons and daughters of a variety of ages, and in the summer you could hear the laughter of gangs of children out on their bikes and playing in gardens from every open window.

Then the driver’s door opened, and a man stepped out, his long and rather formal woollen coat catching the wind, whipping around his lower legs. His hair was the same shade as the boy’s, long and untied down his back, and as he turned Bard caught the sight of a discolouration on one side of his face, the type or details of which he could not see at this distance.

No second parent got out of the car. Of course, that did not mean anything – they might be following in another car, or sorting out boxes and bags on the other end, or they might even have already been in the house, having arrived before Bard started watching. But there was a certain dynamic between the three of them, an indeterminate _something_ that made him think that there was not anyone missing from this small family. Of course, he might be wrong. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on his part – it would be nice not to be the only single father on the street, set up in awkward situations and forced dynamics with the two single mothers who occupied number 18 and 23 respectively. A new face – and quite a handsome one at that, if Bard was any judge – would give him a welcome reprieve.

As if he could sense Bard’s thoughts, the man glanced around, catching sight of Bard watching them through his living room window. Feeling rather embarrassed now he was caught spying, Bard raised a hand in an awkward wave, and after a momentary pause, the man nodded in return.

“That didn’t look weird at all, Dad,” Sigrid commented, and he turned to her, rubbing the scruff of his facial hair at the sight of his eldest. It still struck him sometimes with some concern how old she was now – how fifteen years had passed since she had been born he didn’t know. She was looking at him now with a face that was very close to that of an adult, a raised eyebrow and a laugh in the line of her mouth, and he was rather ashamed to admit that he stuck his tongue out at her in response.

"Finish your coffee Dad, and stop spying on the neighbours. Save that for your retirement."

==============

It was several more days until the promising clouds overhead finally gave in and released the snow that all the children had been waiting for – a cold December had raised all their hopes for a white Christmas, but the weather had proved stubborn until now. It started snowing late one Friday evening, after the curtains had been drawn and the children in their pyjamas, and when Bard caught sight of it through the blinds in the kitchen windows he had wisely decided to stay quiet in case it had all melted by morning. Luckily, however, it settled, and the morning dawned with Tilda’s shrieks of delight as she saw the thick and undisturbed layer outside. Bard just about managed to get them all in sensible shoes and coats before they barrelled outside – even Sigrid, now at times too old to play with her siblings, seemed suddenly ten years younger at the prospect of a snowman. It took Bard rather longer to work up the courage to go out into the cold, and by the time he had his children had been joined on the pavement by a number of the others, including the two new young residents.

He glanced up the street, where it joined to a rather busier road, and was gratified to see that two parents were already standing guard, keeping an eye out for cars to warn them about the children playing in the street. Down the other end was the new resident, propped up against his front garden wall, watching his two children with rather a wary eye.

He heard the distant whistle from the kettle in the kitchen, and stepped back inside, hesitating only for a moment before taking two mugs out of the kitchen cupboard.

“I’m afraid I don’t know how you take it,” he said a few minutes later as he approached the man with two mugs of tea. “I have one with sugar and one without, but if you don’t take milk then I’m afraid I’ll have to drink both.”

The man blinked at him, a long and slow look before he offered a small twitch of his mouth that might have been a smile.

“Sugar would be fine, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Bard replied, “But that does mean you have to have bunny mug.”

He proffered the pink mug with its ceramic ears sticking out the top, and the man took it with another quirk of his mouth.

“Thank you. We’ve just moved – those two are mine,” the man said, indicating his children with his free hand. “Legolas and Tauriel. No need to comment on the names, their old family ones and I have heard every joke imaginable.”

Bard didn’t really want to admit that he already knew which two were his, and so busied himself pointing out his own. “Your son is with mine – Bain. They look around the same age. Then there is Tilda over there making snowballs, and my eldest, Sigrid, is the one in the red scarf with the gaggle of teenagers. And I’m Bard - so you can see, I have nothing to comment on the names front.”

“Is there a Scandinavian link in there somewhere?”

“My late wife, though my own name is just a quirk of radical parents I’m afraid.”

“I’m Thranduil – historic names from a long-gone aristocratic past.”

Bard smiled – there was a wry humour in Thranduil’s tone that suggested a good sense of humour.

“Are you married?” he asked, and Thranduil shook his head.

“Like you, a widower. My wife passed away in a car accident when Legolas was only three. Tauriel’s own parents were also in the car – I adopted her then.”

Bard couldn’t help but wonder if Thranduil had also been in this accident, and if that explained Thranduil’s face. Now he was close enough he could see that it was a large patch of scar tissue, and when Thranduil shifted and turned a little more in Bard’s direction that he could see that there was damage to his eye, though it wasn’t clear whether it had interfered with his vision or not. He looked away, back at the children.

“Well, it is very nice to meet you,” Bard said, after a moment. “And I offer my warmest welcome to the street. I do hope you enjoy it here.”

* * *

** February **

The door slammed when his two oldest got back from school with a rather unusual level of aggression. Bard had picked up Tilda from her primary school an hour previously, and she shot him a look from across the kitchen table, where they were sat together, he with a mug of tea and she with a hot chocolate. She had been showing him the Valentine's Day cards she had been given at school that day – three homemade ones from her best friends, all of whom had been gifted glitter-covered creations of Tilda’s own hand in return.

Bard widened his eyes at her comically, and she snorted into her mug.

“Bain’s in a terrible mood,” Sigrid announced as she made her way into the kitchen. “I tried to ask him what was wrong, and he bit my head off, so I assume it is an issue with Valentine's Day. Jenny asked me how many cards I’d been given when we were on the bus and I thought he was going to throttle her.”

“How many did you get?” Tilda asked with wide eyed enthusiasm. “Can I see?”

“I got quite as many as I wanted,” Sigrid said, nose in the air as she made her way over to the kettle. “And I think you’re a bit too young to read them.”

“Don’t horrify your old father like that,” Bard groaned. “I don’t want to think about what kind of inappropriate things young people might write to each other.”

She smacked the back of his head rather gently as she joined them with her own coffee – though there was so much milk and sugar in it that Bard might hesitate to call it that. He didn’t call her out on it though – he had done the exact same thing when he was a teenager, wanting to like the drink for the look of it but needing to dilute it significantly.

“Don’t tease your brother when he comes downstairs,” he told them both. “If he is upset, don’t make him feel worse about it.”

Eventually Bain did come downstairs, perhaps only because Bard relented and ordered pizza for dinner in an attempt to cheer him up. He said very little, and glowered the whole time, but Bard let him be – Bain would talk when he was ready to or not at all, and no amount of pushing would change that. He didn’t look up until a sharp knock at the door came.

Bard was rather surprised to see Thranduil when he opened up, with both his children in front of him. He hadn’t seen much of the man since their brief interaction in January, but the children had been over several times, and his to theirs. Legolas and Bain had palled up quite admirably, and though Tauriel often joined them she was very good with Tilda, always making sure she was included, playing alone with her when she grew tired of the boys.

“Do you want to come in?” he asked. “I suspect they have already taken advantage of my absence from the kitchen to dig the ice cream out of the freezer.”

Thranduil pulled a sympathetic face as the children came in and headed with great determination to the kitchen.

“I’m afraid we’re inconveniencing you,” he said, a little stiffly, as he hesitated in the doorway. “They only wanted to stop by to drop off cards, not to plunder your ice cream reserves.”

Bard stepped backwards, gesturing for Thranduil to follow him into the open plan downstairs. “It’s quite alright. As I’m sure you also know, the first rule of children is to always stock up on anything and everything.”

Thranduil made a low noise that sounded like agreement as he finally stepping inside, unbuttoning his long coat. Bard reached for it instinctively, though once he had taken the forest green wool he worried about hanging it on their own coat rack, overstuffed as it was with any number of items that he couldn’t remember putting up there. He managed to find room for it without too much fuss though, and without knocking over the wide array of multicoloured hats that seemed to have flocked there over the last couple of months. He glared at them - he didn't remember buying any of them.

“I have coffee or tea, or if you are feeling particularly adventurous, I have a bottle of red on the side that I’ve been trying to find an excuse to open.”

“If you’re sure we wouldn’t be overstaying our welcome? I can round them up if you like.”

Bard shook his head and gestured in the direction of the sofa. “I’ll grab some glasses, and make sure they are all alright, and be right back with you.”

Luckily, Sigrid had negotiated the ice cream situation and had divided the tub equally between five bowls. Tilda had already managed to get some in her hair, but otherwise, things seemed quite under control, so he winked at his eldest daughter and snuck out with the wine. Thranduil took the glass and took a sniff with clear approval, and Bard was tempted for a moment to tell him it had been a gift, and any quality was due to other people, but resolved quickly to keep that fact to himself.

“Are you enjoying the house?”

Thranduil nodded. “We had everything decorated before we moved in, so there hasn’t been too much mess – and the children are happy to be somewhere with other people around. We lived in the country before, and I think they found it quite lonely.”

“We were the same – but in a city. It wasn’t safe for them to play out.”

They lapsed into silence, the odd, almost-awkward silence of people who didn’t know each other very well, that had thwarted every attempted date that he had been on in the last ten years. Luckily, Tilda burst through before things got any worse, with a bright pink card clutched in her hand.

“Dad, look! Tauriel got me a card!”

“That’s lovely,” he told her, admiring the proffered card. “Did you give her yours?”

“I did!” she announced, before looking between the two of them. “Dad, did you give any Valentine's cards this year?”

He smiled. “Only to the three of you.”

“That’s mean, Dad. You’re supposed to give them to your friends - why didn’t you give one to Mr Thranduil?”

Well, there was nothing quite as good as the honest innocence of a child to make things feel spectacularly awkward. He did his best not to look at Thranduil as he nodded quite seriously at Tilda’s question, not wanting to dismiss her offhand.

“You’re right, that was horrible of me,” he said, before looking at Thranduil, hoping that his attempt at a joke would be read the right way. “Do you forgive me?”

Thranduil looked quite started for a moment, before his face softened into his own faux-serious expression. “Well, I’m not sure. You’ll have to give me time to think about it.”

Tilda was watching the two of them, wide-eyed. “He didn’t mean to be nasty,” she said, sounding quite worried now.

Thranduil turned to her, leaning forward on the sofa so he was closer to her. “Are you sure?”

She nodded, with great importance, and he offered her a smile – a wider and more genuine one than Bard had seen on him before.

“Very well then, I suppose I will forgive him, but only because he has such a trustworthy person to vouch for him.”

She beamed then, and ran back to the kitchen, and Thranduil sat back again.

“I’m sorry,” he told Bard, between sipping his wine. “I’m afraid I might have started some terrible gossip about us between our children.”

“I suppose I can live with that. Who knows, it might do them good to think their father has some interesting scandal in the works. Some great love affair might make them think I’m rather exciting.”

"Oh dear, has it been that long?"

"Many years. I am afraid that I simply don't have the time."

Thranduil laughed, a small and quiet sound. “Could you imagine going back and doing it all again?”

“Which part?”

“The… I don’t know really, the whole dramatic, young love thing. Feeling impossible and indestructible.”

Bard rubbed at the back of his head. His own young relationship with his wife had been full of passion and dreams far beyond the scope of what he had achieved – though he would sacrifice them all over again for the quiet contentment of his life with his children. “It does sound rather exhausting when you put it like that. I’m not sure if I would have the energy to go through it all again.”

Thranduil nodded, his eyes far away. “Quite.”

“Can you imagine the logistics of it? I can barely stay awake past eleven.”

It wasn’t exactly the most flattering thing to say about himself, but Thranduil seemed to understand – there was something rather light in his gaze as he turned to Bard, as if about to impart some great and important secret that he knew he would feel much better for getting off his chest.

“I fell asleep at the dining table last week. Dinner was done and they both ran off to finish homework and I was going to clear up, and then a second later Legolas was waking me up and it was three hours later.”

“And still with the washing up to do, that does sound awful.”

“The children were at least kind enough to do it for me before they woke me up.”

Bard laughed, and things felt suddenly much easier. Their conversation flowed quite easily from then on, and Thranduil stayed to finish the bottle before rounding up the children and ushering them into their coats again.

“This was quite nice, actually,” Bard said, as Thranduil pulled his coat on. “I work from home, so I can do the school run with Tilda, but that does mean that I don’t get out and about that much. It – well, if you like, it might be nice to do it again?”

“This all sounds very forward for someone who didn’t even get me a Valentine's card,” Thranduil replied, but he was smiling a little again. “But I suppose I could forgive you and take you up on it.”

* * *

** March **

Spring finally came to the neighbourhood, bringing with it a riot of daffodils and crocuses in the gardens all down the street. Bard was glad to see the back of winter, but March brought with it an annual problem – that one Sunday of the month that always left them all cast down.

“Mrs Kingsley said we have to make Mother’s Day cards in art class next week,” Tilda told him one day as they walked back from school. She wasn’t looking at him, but down at her shoes and the pavement, still covered in the remnants of winter mulch from last years fallen leaves. The usual sparkle and skip in her walk was missing today, had been missing when he saw her coming out of the schoolhouse from his normal place in the playground. Every year he waited for this same hurdle, and every year he wasn’t disappointed.

“Well, that’s okay,” he said, in the end. “I’ll have a word for her, and you can make whatever you like.”

Tilda nodded, still very serious.

“I think I want to make a card for Mum this time,” she said, her voice very quiet.

“You don’t have to,” Bard said, and despite the many long years and all the healing he had done he felt that deep ache in his heart throb a little, the one that could never fully heal. “Why don’t you make one for Granny, like you normally do?”

“I’ll make one for her, too, “ Tilda said. “But I want to make one for Mum. Sigrid and Bain do.”

Bard had known that, although he hadn’t realised that Tilda did. She had only been a babe in arms when Else had passed away, and he doubted she remembered much of her mother other than the pictures she had seen and the stories she had been told second hand over the years. Sigrid and Bain remembered, he knew that, even if those memories would grow fainter over the years until all that was left was the fuzzy recollection of a face, the smell of her perfume and the warmth of her arms, the faint stirrings of nostalgia as they thought of the books she had read them.

Tilda took his hand, shaking him out of his thoughts.

“Shall we go get a chocolate bar on the way home?” Bard asked, just to see her grin.

==============

Mother’s Day came, and with it their traditions for the day. They spent the day in the Remembrance Garden where the tree they had planted in her name was, and then went out for lunch. After, they went to the park close to their house, where they always stayed until it was time for their evening meal – Bard wanted to spend as much of the time out of the house as he could, to avoid them all sitting around and dwelling too long on their loss. Normally they were the only ones out on this day, other families settling down to mid-afternoon Sunday roasts or visiting family, but today they were not alone at the park. When they came through the gates, they quickly spotted three familiar figures by the swings.

“Afternoon,” Bard said, as he drew level with Thranduil, who was propped up against the railings. “Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” Thranduil replied. “I’m sure the children will be glad of the company. We have been rather morose today.”

Bard hummed. “Do they find this day difficult? I know mine do.”

The look Thranduil gave him was a little startled, but not offended by the question. He nodded, a little stiffly.

“It’s a hard thing, isn’t it?” Bard found himself saying. “You don’t know what to do, when you lose their other parent. At first you just muddle along, barely keeping your head above water, and by the time you’ve found your feet again, you suddenly have to start making the kinds of decisions you’d never considered. How do you talk about them? How to make sure the children remember them? How much should you even force that sort of thing on to them? Tilda has no memories of her, not really – does talking about her just force my own grief onto her?”

He had really not meant to be that candid, and hadn’t planned to say anything like that at all. But Thranduil seemed to understand. He was turning something over and over in his hands, something that Bard couldn’t quite make out, and he tucked it away in his pocket before he could get a closer look at it, turning to face Bard a little more.

“What took her, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Ah, well,” Bard said, pulling a wry face. “You’ve told me your story; I can’t hold mine. It was the big C, I’m afraid. Came suddenly and took her quickly – very little pain, or suffering. Which is a blessing, I suppose, if you can say that there is one.”

“Hmm,” Thranduil replied. “I am sorry, if you’re not tired of people saying that to you.”

“Well, I am for you, if you’re not sick of hearing it either.”

Thranduil huffed a quiet laugh. “I was thinking, I haven’t returned your favour from the other month. Why don’t you all come back to mine, after this? Unless you have plans? I can provide the wine this time, and order some food, and let the children eat on the floor in front of a film, or something?”

“As long as we wouldn’t be in the way?”

“Of course not,” Thranduil told him, shooting him a small smile. “And I know at least my children would be glad to have something of a distraction. It’s hard to set up things with friends for them today – most of them are, of course, with their mothers.”

There wasn’t much to say to that, though Bard could relate. They settled into a less serious conversation as they watched the children, until the sun fell low in the sky and they ushered them back to Thranduil’s house, where Bard was immediately set to task referring a discussion over which film all five children were happy to watch, which was no mean feat given the age range and personal tastes of them all. They eventually settled on an animated show that Bard had never heard of, which probably had something to do with how old and out of touch he was becoming.

He followed the sound of Thranduil’s voice once they were all happily ensconced. Bard had never seen inside the house when its previous occupants had lived there, but he couldn’t have imagined it was that much nicer than it was now. Any old carpet had been pulled up, the original floorboards polished and sanded, the walls alternating shades of cream, soft grey and pale green, with dark wooden furniture and large windows to compensate. He found himself eventually in the kitchen, where Thranduil was just hanging up the phone. He waved a menu in Bard’s direction.

“I know we agreed on Thai, but I just ordered a pile of everything. I hope that’s alright?”

“Of course,” Bard answered, as Thranduil waved him in the direction of a pair of armchairs, settled in a nook by a window. They were rather impressive looking things, but when he settled down in one he found it surprisingly comfortable, and not nearly as grand-feeling as it had looked. Thranduil joined him, two glasses of wine in hand.

“Are you alright?” Bard asked. Thranduil’s eyes were far away, in some distant past, and his hand was twitching slightly against the armrest. He smiled at the other man when Thranduil jolted in surprise at the question.

“Of course,” Thranduil offered. “Just… well, you know better than most, I suppose. It is a difficult day, isn’t it? You end up feeling so wildly inadequate despite everything.”

Bard nodded. The wine was rich and heavy on his tongue, and the warmth of the kitchen was settling rather pleasantly into his bones.

“I wasn’t driving,” Thranduil continued, quietly. “That night – I was supposed to, the four of us had tickets to the theatre, but on the day I was ill, and told them to go on without me. We had all met at university you see, as friends before we coupled off, so we were all quite comfortable with each other in any combination. But then they died, and I took in Tauriel – I had to fight for her, mind, her parent’s will stated my wife and I should be her guardians but the courts were unhappy at the idea of only me taking her. And all of a sudden I had to learn a whole new child, what she liked and what she didn’t.”

“It’s hard,” Bard agreed, and though he was about to say more he was interrupted by the shouting of the children from the other room, offended or excited at something that had happened on their show.

“But we still have them, don’t we?” he said instead, with a smile.

“And they are all rather wonderful.”

Tilda screamed from the living room, and they both instinctively tensed, even though it was clearly the sound of excitement rather than pain or fear. All the same, Bard waited, in case any of them should call for him, poised to jump up and run for a few moments before relaxing back into his chair.

“Sometimes I feel like we’ll never get passed it, you know.” Thranduil said, all of a sudden. “They don’t like me going places in the car in the evening – not without them. I was late coming home a few weeks ago and when I got back and picked them up from their friend’s house they were both quite pale. They didn’t say anything, not even after we got home, but the two of them spent the whole evening sat next to me on the sofa without complaining at all about my quiz shows, so you know something was up.”

“Sometimes I find Sigrid going through our old photo albums,” Bard said, for lack of any better response. “She never does it if she thinks I’ll find her, even though when I do I don’t say anything. Bain has Else’s old teddy bear, the one she had as a child, and he keeps it next to his bed in a drawer even now – some mornings it is all tangled up in his bedding, though I never let on that I’ve find it. And just a few days ago, Tilda told me that she wanted to make a Mother’s Day card for her. It doesn’t matter how much time passes – there are things we must help them with, and I don’t think it means that we’re doing a bad job.”

Thranduil’s hand was a sudden warmth around his wrist, a touch of comfort that lasted just long enough that Bard could feel his own pulse flicker against the pressure of Thranduil’s touch.

“You’re right,” Thranduil said, withdrawing his hand and placing it back on the armrest of the chair. “And I thank you for saying it.”

Bard almost missed Thranduil’s next words as the doorbell rang and the children yelled in excitement at the prospect of food. “And I think you are doing an excellent job, you know.”

Bard, suspecting that he was blushing, didn’t look at Thranduil as he rose from the chair to answer the door, but he replied none the less. “You are, as well.”

* * *

** April **

“Remind me again why I’ve agreed to this?”

Thranduil snorted. “Because it is a wonderful family tradition of ours and we would be pleased to have to over to celebrate it with us.”

“That still doesn’t explain why I’m helping you now.”

Bard stared down at the rather bewilderingly vast basket of small chocolate eggs he held in his hands. Five at a time were wrapped together in coloured tissue paper, making compact little nests for them. Thranduil had evidently spent a long time putting these together, a fact which Bard was of course grateful for, though he was rather less impressed with having to follow Thranduil around both of their houses. With his own children staying with his mother, and Thranduil’s with their grandparents too, they had a rare afternoon free to hide the eggs for an Easter egg hunt.

Of course, Bard normally did one himself, though he had always just hidden a handful of them in various places around the house. Apparently, that was not how Thranduil did things.

He was currently crouched on the floor, stashing one of the bundles beneath the bath. He paused a moment, flicking through the great mound of slips of paper that he carried in his own box, before adding one to the nest.

“You’re helping now because you think it is a great idea, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

“I just like the idea of making the children run between two houses before they eat every piece of chocolate they can get their hands on. Although you still haven’t convinced me about the merits of having riddles to tell them where the next nest is.”

“It helps them think, and slows them down,” Thranduil replied. “And each label is given one of the children’s names, and that child must answer it – that way Tilda and Sigrid won’t be left out by nature of being older and younger.”

Bard hid a smile. “That is kind of you.”

“Nonsense,” Thranduil said, standing up and brushing off his knees. “You don’t invite guests over and then not accommodate them. Just be glad you’re helping me now – if you didn’t already know where they were all hidden, I would not be above making you answer the riddles too.”

“I didn’t take you for the kind of person who would be so excited about this sort of thing,” Bard admitted as they moved from the bathroom to the airing cupboard. “Not in a bad way, I just thought you might be a bit more reticent.”

“Nonsense,” Thranduil replied, peering into Bard’s basket for the next nest of eggs. “If you’re going to do things, you must do them properly.”

“I dread to see what you do for Christmas.”

Thranduil stuck his nose in the air. “I am appropriately festive.”

Bard hummed, still trying very hard not to let Thranduil see how amused he was.

“Despite your protestations, you are very kind to have us, even if you are not quite willing to admit it.”

He was gratified to see the blush that appeared on Thranduil’s ears at the compliment, and was very glad that he had bought a large and expensive box of chocolates for Thranduil as a thank you present for planning and sorting out everything. He had a feeling that Thranduil did not often receive gratitude, or compliments for that matter, if the way he brushed them off so quickly was any indication – he evidently was not used to hearing such things.

It took them a while to finish hiding things, in some of the most obscure places that he would never have considered. Every room in both houses had a secreted away nest by the time they were done, as well as the gardens: Thranduil produced a number of metal tins, into which the nests went, so any rain overnight or inquisitive animal would not ruin them. By the time they were done Bard felt surprisingly tired, more from their shared laughter than any physical exertion. It felt good – it had been a long time since he had a friend, and rapidly Thranduil was becoming a real and genuine one, a better one than Bard had known in many years. The friends he had from before Else’s death had tried their hardest, he knew, but all of them had families of their own, and over the years they had drifted apart. He blamed none of them: the weekend activities he had once shared with them he had stopped attending, having no second parent to watch the children and loathing leaving them so often, and when he had been invited to dinner parties and the like he knew he had not been the best of company. But Thranduil understood this, and never expected Bard to leave his children behind – any invitation was for all of them, and he seemed to genuinely like Bard’s three children, as much as he liked Legolas’ impetuous energy and Tauriel’s keen mind and curiosity.

They settled into the armchairs in Thranduil’s kitchen, with large mugs of tea in front of them.

“I can’t stay too long,” he warned the other man. “I have to do the prep for dinner tomorrow.”

Bard had insisted on cooking dinner for them all, given the amount of effort Thranduil had put into the Easter egg hunt. Thranduil had protested, of course, only relenting when Bard had been a little underhand and enlisted Tilda to his cause. Her puppy-eyes could fell a man much harder than Thranduil.

“I’m happy to keep you company, if you like?” Thranduil offered. “I’ve been told I am very good at peeling vegetables.”

“You don’t have to, you know.”

“I know,” Thranduil said, blowing on his tea. “And if you would rather do it alone, please say. But I do… I do enjoy spending time with you.”

Bard felt a rather uncharacteristic flare of heat in his chest at that, but this time he did not try to hide his smile. Thranduil still wasn’t looking at him, his hair falling long and loose, covering part of his face, and for a moment Bard wanted to reach over, and push it back so that he could see him properly. He imagined that hair would feel very soft against his own coarse fingertips.

“I like being with you, as well,” he replied, keeping his hands to himself. “I was thinking that very thing earlier. I’m glad you moved here.”

“As am I,” Thranduil said. “Now, finish your tea, and show me to the potatoes.”

(Tilda crowed with delight the next day, when a serious-faced Thranduil opened his front door to them with a pair of bunny ears perched on his head.)

* * *

** May **

“I still don’t know how I ended up here,” Bard commented as he cleared away the beard glue. “If someone had told me that I’d end up sticking fake facial hair on a fourteen-year-old, I’d have never believed them.”

“You’re doing it because I needed a favour,” Thranduil told him, carefully cleaning a foundation brush. “And I can’t do stage makeup and beards.”

When they had put out a call for parental help for the secondary school play, Bard hadn’t paid too much attention. Normally the members of the rather officious PTA dealt with that sort of thing, and Bard wasn’t exactly an expert at backstage help. But apparently Brenda and Janice, the two ladies who normally sorted out makeup and prosthetics, were involved in a rather nasty dispute with the rest of the PTA over the donations to the last cake sale, and so were on strike. Legolas had volunteered his father to the cause, and Thranduil had convinced Bard to join in turn, because he was a sadist and didn’t want to suffer alone.

“At least it is the last night,” Bard said, sitting back in his chair. “I feel like I am getting repetitive strain from sticking on moustaches.”

“Oh, stop complaining,” Thranduil told him. “You like to help.”

Well, that was true, although Bard wouldn’t have liked to admit it. The last two weeks of performances had been rather exhausting, and he was looking forward to having an evening where he wasn’t surrounded by teenagers. The lead actress was apparently involved in some sort of terrifyingly tempestuous relationship with an understudy that had created an endless sea of drama, and Bard was convinced that the drama teacher was making the situation worse deliberately for the sake of their own twisted sense of humour.

“You’re good with that stuff,” Bard commented as he watched Thranduil carefully place the various bottles and palettes of make-up back in the storage boxes. He had to plead ignorance on what they actually were, but Thranduil seemed to know the difference between the different types and what sort of brush he was supposed to use for which.

“I used to use makeup,” Thranduil replied, quietly, gesturing in the direction of his face. “To cover up… well, you know. Tried for a couple of years, before I realised that it was just making me feel worse doing it. Fair play to anyone that wants to hide their scars, or feel better for doing so, but really I think it was only covering it to make other people feel more comfortable, and in the end I wasn’t doing it for me.”

Thranduil had never mentioned the scars on his face, and Bard had never asked in turn, figuring that it was Thranduil’s story to tell as and when he felt comfortable doing so. His fingertips rested against the skin there now, lightly, as if it still hurt.

“Well, the students are lucky to have you,” Bard replied. “And I am very grateful that you relegated me to beards.”

Thranduil smiled at him, and Bard felt something twist in his chest. “We should probably go through,” he added. “Everyone has gone through – it must be starting soon.”

“Forgive me,” Thranduil replied, “But I’m not sure I can sit through it again. I have something of a headache, and we have seen it ten times already.”

“I might feel a bit more beholden if any of our children are in it,” Bard said, nodding, standing up and offering Thranduil a hand. “Do you fancy a walk, instead?”

Thranduil hesitated a moment, before reaching out and taking Bard’s hand, letting him pull him to his feet. They stood for a moment, a fraction too close to each other for comfort, before Bard stepped away, rubbing at the back of his head, his face a little warm.

“Where did you have in mind?”

A school at night has an odd quality to it, the sense of an unnatural quiet, a building meant for running feet and childhood laughter suddenly silenced. The corridors were dark, the outdated wooden panelling absorbing the dim light from the street outside and the sound of their footsteps as they moved slowly through the building. The lights were all off, and they didn’t bother to try and find the switches: the display boards looked different in the dark, the examples of student work turned to shadows and strange shapes. Bard found himself very aware that they were in a place they probably shouldn’t be, when everyone else was in the hall watching the play. No one knew where they were but no one was looking for them: they existed in a different word, where it was just the two of them. Everything felt hushed and strange, full of potential, everyone else far away.

“Do you think we would have been friends in school?” he asked, and he found that he was whispering, although he wasn’t really sure why. There was something comforting about the dark and quiet, something that he found himself loathe to break.

Thranduil shrugged. “Perhaps. Though I didn’t really have many friends in school. I wasn’t unpopular, necessarily… I just didn’t really talk to anyone all that much. I spent a lot of time in and out of hospital, after the fire.”

Bard could imagine that – Thranduil with shorter, school-regulation hair, young and looking like a harder, colder version of his son, wandering through the corridors with a bag over his shoulder and a look in his eye that made people want to stay away from him. The thought of it was oddly endearing.

His fingertips grazed his cheek again, and Bard knew better than to ask. Thranduil’s eyes were strange in this light, dark and full of things that Bard did not know. He bumped his shoulder against Thranduil’s gently, and his hand fell from his cheek. For a brief moment their hands touched, and Bard felt the graze of his nails against his skin.

“Thanks for not asking,” Thranduil whispered. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“I’ll listen, if and when you want me to,” Bard replied, quiet and low. “But that’s your choice.”

Thranduil nodded. “What were you like in school?”

Bard smiled to remember himself, rubbing at his chin self-consciously. “I wasn’t the most popular kid there, let’s put it that way. I spent a lot of time picking fights with other kids that I probably shouldn’t have, and arguing with teachers. I should have been much better behaved, and I think most of the other kids knew that I was trouble, tried to stay away from me.”

He had been all scowls and misplaced aggression, certain that he was doing the right thing and not wanting to see even when he was wrong, full of certainty and the determination of youth. He had known that he was right, that he would change the world, that the world would be forced to fall into line with his own ideals.

Thranduil huffed a quiet laugh. “I think I would have liked you then.”

“You make it sound like you don’t like me now.”

“Of course I do,” Thranduil answered. “I would go so far as to say I like you a lot.”

Bard could feel that flush returning to his cheeks again, heating his skin, making him glad of the dark that would hopefully hide his embarrassment.

“Well, I like you quite a lot too,” he mumbled. “Even if I have spent the last few days covered in beard glue thanks to you.”

* * *

** June  **

“Happy Father’s Day!”

Bard groaned, and hid his face under the pillow. “What time is it?” he mumbled, right as the heavy weight of a small child threw itself on top of him.

“It’s morning, Dad!” Tilda informed him, far too close to his ear for comfort. “And we made you breakfast!”

He rolled, shifting her with him, and she laughed, grabbing on to him to stop herself falling off the bed.

“Sigrid said to tell you we all made it,” Tilda whispered as she scrambled to sit next to him. “But she only let me pour the juice, she actually did everything.”

Tilda’s frank honesty was a deeply endearing character trait that Bard hoped she would never grow out of. He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Well, it looks delicious,” he said, taking the tray from Sigrid. “Although it looks like far too much for me to eat by myself. You’re all going to have to help me.”

Sigrid rolled her eyes as Bain threw himself on the bed and helped himself to Bard’s toast, but when Bard caught her eye she grinned, a little sheepishly. There was definitely enough food on there to feed all four of them, and Bard rather suspected it wasn’t an accident – Sigrid had a skill for planning ahead.

“What are we doing today?” Bain asked, spraying crumbs across the bedding.

“I don’t think we have any plans,” Bard said, settling back against the bedhead. “What do you think we should do?”

They made the eventual decision to go to Bard’s favourite restaurant for lunch, which the kids normally complained about because the food tended to be plated with too much rocket, and everything was drizzled with balsamic glaze, even the chicken nuggets. But today there were no complaints, and he found himself wondering as they squabbled over the various condiments (delivered in small rustic pots) what sort of Father’s Day he might have had if Else had not passed away, if his father was still alive, if they still lived in the city.

It was strange thinking about all the ways that a life could have been different. But he was happy about where he was, even if wasn’t what he had imagined the day he had first held Sigrid in his arms, the first day of truly being a father, when he thought about what his life was going to be.

Did Thranduil ever feel this way, surveying the landscape of a life so wildly altered by course of time, the ravages of a war? Did he ever feel the sense of overwhelming gratitude that everything had worked out in the end, that his children were safe and healthy and happy and growing so well? Did Thranduil ever feel terrified, knowing that he had managed to raise such wonderful children but not understanding how he had managed it, scared that one day he would ruin everything?

“Oi, Dad,” came a voice, cutting across his thoughts.

Bain was staring at him. “What is wrong with you Dad? You look like you’re about to cry. And your fancy eggs are getting cold.”

“Nothing at all,” Bard told him. “I just love you guys a lot, that’s all.”

Bain was blushing. “Don’t be weird, Dad.”

==============

“Did you have a nice Father’s Day?” Thranduil asked him some days later, when they ran into each other at the corner shop – Bard was after milk, Thranduil appearing to be trying to decide between two brands of flour, both of which were essentially identical.

“Nice and quiet,” Bard told him. “And I acquired three homemade cards and a lovely if slightly wonky chocolate cake out of it. How about you?”

“Two cards, a guilt trip on the phone from my parents, and a scarf,” Thranduil answered. “Tauriel has just started knitting, and so it is also quite wonky, but will be worn with pride when the weather gets cold enough again.”

“Sounds lovely,” Bard said, grinning a little at the thought. “What colour is it?”

“A charming mix of navy blue and orange, which will look awful with my coat, but there is nothing to be done about that. I am already looking into replacing my gloves.”

“Of course you are. And you know it doesn’t matter which of those flours you buy, right? They are the exact same.”

Thranduil pulled a face. “That’s what you think. Legolas is starting to get quite particular, and he wants me to teach him how to make pancakes at some point.”

“I wish you all the luck in the world – we still have marks on the ceiling from when I taught mine how to flip them. Word of warning – emphasise that they need to do it gently, otherwise you will end up dodging bits of half-cooked batter as they fall for a week afterwards.”

“Good to know,” Thranduil said, finally choosing one of the bags and following Bard to the tills. “Although I’m sure you looked lovely with batter in your hair.”

“It was a beautiful look,” Bard answered, as the man scanning his milk shot them both a rather funny look. “I am a style icon.”

“Mrs Hartnell from 43 does seem very impressed with the way that you dress. She tells me that I dress too formally and should try to look a bit more comfortable – like you do.”

Bard stared between his own clothes and Thranduil’s, rather incredulously. There was rather a stark contrast between Bard’s old jeans (almost threadbare at one knee), old t-shirt (actually threadbare) and denim jacket (still a miracle he managed to fit into it) and Thranduil’s white shirt (ironed and clean, a rarity in Bard’s wardrobe) and pressed trousers, which looked like they had never kneeled on the ground in their life.

“I’m not sure I’d take her up on that,” Bard told him. “I think you look a lot better than I do most days – and I’m pretty sure that 'comfortable' is just a word we use when we mean scruffy.”'

“Well, when she says formal about me, she really means too stuffy,” Thranduil told him, holding the shop door open for him as they left. “So I wouldn’t worry too much – it sounds like we’re being equally insulted.”

“I still think you look better than me.”

“I wouldn’t agree,” Thranduil said, staring down the street as if he looking for someone in the distance. “I think you look very nice.”

Bard laughed. “Even now?”

“Always,” Thranduil replied, and though Bard had only been joking there was a sincerity in Thranduil’s voice that made that warm, spiralling feeling in his chest start moving again. Thranduil wasn’t meeting his eye, was holding the bag of flour in front of himself as if he was using it as a shield, and Bard hadn’t ever really thought to see the man looking vulnerable, but right now he was.

“Well, right back at you,” Bard said, easing the tension. “And when you do make those pancakes, I recommend the oldest and scruffiest clothes that you have."

"Noted," Thranduil told him, shooting him a smile before turning down the street.

* * *

** July **

“Tilda, I love you and I always will, but if you drop that ice cream on me I am going to throw you in the sea.”

She ran away laughing, leaving Bard on the sand, stretched out on a towel that was far too nice feeling to be one of his own.

“Thanks again for inviting us along,” he said, as he rolled over enough to see Thranduil, sitting rather elegantly in a fold-out chair under a frankly enormous forest green umbrella. Thranduil had invited them all along for a weekend on the coast, making promises of good weather (surprisingly accurate, for England), fish and chips, and letting the kids run around on the beach all day, and Bard had accepted the invitation without question. The kids all had fun when they were together as a big group, and he had to admit that having another adult around was quite nice. He had also been quite interested to see what Thranduil looked like in a more casual setting, although so far there hadn’t been much to see.

Take now, on the beach, for example. Bard was in flip-flops, old knee-length cotton shorts pulled over his trunks, and a t-shirt that had seen better days (like most of his t-shirts). The t-shirt had been abandoned in favour of the warm sunshine and soft towel under him, and his hair was pulled up in a messy bun at the back of his head. Thranduil, in comparison, was wearing black cotton trousers, rolled up around his ankles, a white linen shirt, and deck shoes that were now neatly placed by the side of his chair. He had one leg crossed over the other at the knee, large tortoiseshell sunglasses that covered half of his face, and had braided his hair back into a long plait down his back.

He looked ludicrously put together, and rather unfairly like a model out of Italian Vogue.

“What are you looking so offended by?” Thranduil asked, startling Bard, who lay back and watched the sky.

“Just Tilda, who is drying to drip ice cream on me,” he lied, hiding his face behind his book.

He could hear the screaming of the seagulls, and the yelling of the children – he peered out from behind his book to look for the kids, catching sight of them at the water line, throwing a ball around. He watched for a moment, making sure that they were all fine and that Tilda was being included (she was – they were throwing the ball a little lower for her so she could still catch it) before turning back to his book, which was a little dry and not all that easy to follow. Instead he closed his eyes, the glow of the sunlight a comforting haze, the heat of the sun sinking into him all the way to his bones. He was comfortable enough that he could have fallen asleep, or perhaps just sink through the earth and never move again.

“It is getting a little late,” Thranduil said, ruffling a magazine. “We should probably get a move on if we want them all showered by dinner time.”

“Urgh,” Bard replied. “I know you’re right, but I would rather like to just stay here for another thirty years.”

“You might enjoy it a bit less in winter, and when the sea gulls decide to nest on your chest,” Thranduil replied, uncrossing his legs with the soft sound of rustling fabric. Bard felt a warm tap on his nose, and opened his eyes again to see Thranduil’s magazine, rolled up to bop him into wakefulness.

“Yes, yes, okay,” he said, sitting up with a groan. “You round up the kids, I’ll pack up here, alright?”

“Deal,” Thranduil said, getting to his feet. It was impressive how collected he looked striding away through the sand, and Bard watched him as he went. Thranduil reached up, pulling his braid upwards, away from his skin, exposing the long line of his pale neck from behind as he went. Bard definitely did not look, and instead turned his attention to wrangling the fold up chairs, which always proved so much more difficult to put away than to put out. Getting four sandy, excitable children (and one sandy, slightly calmer teenager) into people carrier that Thranduil had acquired from an indeterminate somewhere proved quite a task, but when they got back Thranduil took over sorting all their things whilst Sigrid supervised showering and Bard got started on dinner. Within an hour and a half everyone was sat around the table, with damp hair and pyjamas on already, eating pasta as if they had starved all day rather than had their fill of picnic sandwiches just a few hours earlier.

Sigrid retired with her book and laptop to her room upstairs not much longer, no doubt having had quite enough of younger kids for the day. Bard watched her going with some nostalgia, thinking about when she herself was Tilda’s age and wanted to do everything with her parents, but knew better than to say anything to her: she was allowed her independence, and did not deserve a guilt trip about it. The remaining four took over the living room area and colonised the sofas as Bard and Thranduil did the washing up, although Tilda was already asleep by the time they came through to check on them.

Bard carried her up to bed, leaving the other three to put on a film. When he came back downstairs, the back door to the patio was open just a little, and he veered towards it.

He could hear the sea, the whispering shush of it as the tide came in to the close by beach, but the hedges around the garden were tall enough that he couldn’t see it from here. The sun was dipping low in the sky, the light above quickly darkening and the horizon a sea of warm reds and oranges. Thranduil was sat at the small cast iron table, a bottle of wine and two empty glasses on it.

“Do you know, I think you’ve burned your nose,” Thranduil told him when Bard sat down. “It has been getting progressively redder throughout the evening.”

Bard had already suspected that, though he did not appreciate being told it. “Unless you have something that can help, I would prefer we pretend that I didn’t forget to put sun cream on because I was too busy worrying about whether the kids had enough, if it is all the same.”

“At least you make for an excellent example of what happens if you don’t let your fussing fathers apply sun cream every hour,” Thranduil told him with a smile, passing over a bottle of aloe vera gel that Bard immediately uncapped and began applying to his nose. “I won’t say another word, unless the children ask, at which point I will hold you up immediately as a cautionary tale.”

“Thanks,” Bard replied, dryly, as Thranduil poured the wine. “What’s this in aid of?”

“Well, it’s our holiday too. And they are all enjoying themselves and can be trusted to start yelling if that changes.”

“Thank you for having us,” Bard said, after a deep mouthful of red.

“Don’t mention it. I like to come here every year – I did as a child. And my uncle owns this place, so I like to bring mine back. But it is a bit quiet for them now they are growing up. I told them last year they could bring a friend – though I have to admit I’m much happier to have all of you. It’s nice to have a friend of my own, as well, though it does mean we have to cram in a bit. I hope you don’t mind the press.”

It really wasn’t that bad – Thranduil and Bard each had a bedroom each, with Tilda on the sofa bed in Bard’s. The boys were sharing a twin with Tauriel on a camp bed (though most mornings they found she’d crept downstairs and slept on the sofa instead) and Sigrid in the little box room. There were certainly worse accommodations and more uncomfortable places to stay for a weekend, and Bard said as such to Thranduil, who sounded a little concerned that they might all be hating their time here.

The sun vanished, the light turned grey, and by the time Thranduil poured the last of the bottle into their glasses it was dark. The night was still warm, and Bard could taste the salt on the air as he breathed in.

“You worry too much,” he told Thranduil. “Particularly about us.”

“I think I worry as much as I should,” he replied, though he was smiling, his eyes warm as they fixed on the wisps of cloud clinging around the halo of the moon above. “Particularly when it comes to you.”

Bard smiled, and he leant back in his chair, his legs stretching out beneath the table. His knees knocked against Thranduil’s, and when Thranduil didn’t move away Bard didn’t either.

* * *

** August **

“Good morning.”

Bard blinked blearily through his front door. It was five in the morning, the light grey and darker than it normally would have been at this time due to the heavy summer rainclouds that hung overhead. He had been woken up by loud knocking a few minutes ago, and wasn’t quite at his best. He wasn’t sure he had been up this early since Tilda had all woken them up last Christmas morning, and had been kept awake for a large amount of the night by the blustering summer that had been roaring around the house.

“Uh, hi?”

“Apologies for disturbing you,” Thranduil said. “But would you mind watching my kids for a few hours? They’ll probably just go to sleep on the sofa.”

Bard blinked again, shivering in the cold morning air. It had stopped raining, but there was still a dampness in the air, and the wind was still whipping around them. He felt the wet slap of a leaf against his cheek, and reached up to pluck it from his cheek. It was fresh and green, summer growth, pulled from an oak tree by the storm. He realised suddenly that Thranduil was still waiting for an answer from him, and cursed himself for his own distraction: he wasn’t sure his brain was really working yet.

“Um, sure?”

“Thanks,” Thranduil said. “I’ll be right back.”

He took off back in the direction of his house, striding down the road. He was in his usual neat and polished clothes, but there was something slightly ruffled about him. His hair was pushed back from his face and he had looked tired, stressed. He wasn’t wearing a coat either, despite the unpleasant weather.

Bard stifled a yawn and nipped into the kitchen to put the kettle on. By the time he came back to the door Thranduil had come back into view, Legolas and Tauriel in tow behind him, both in dressing gowns and pyjamas with their shoes on over the top, and sleeping bags clutched in their arms. Bard woke up rapidly when he caught sight of Legolas’ face and realised that the boy had been crying.

“What’s going on?” he asked as the kids filed through the door, subdued and strangely quiet. They went immediately to the sofas, where they both flopped down with the boneless energy of the exhausted. “What’s happened?”

“Just a small accident. Nothing that can’t be fixed.” Thranduil said, and Bard blinked at him for a moment, wondering how to probe further. Luckily he was saved from the issue by Tauriel.

“A tree fell into our house.”

“What?”

Thranduil rolled his eyes at him. “Not a very big tree.”

Bard stared. “I’m not sure the size of the tree is all that relevant when it’s _inside your house._ ”

“Yes, well,” Thranduil said, and then didn’t really say anything else. He just stood there, staring blankly at Bard.

Thranduil didn’t look that much different than he normally did – composed, perhaps slightly ruffled, but still in control, calm. But the closer Bard looked the more something scratched at him, the more something felt wrong about the whole picture. There was something about the tension in his shoulders, the way his eyes were fixed on the children rather than on Bard, the faint lines in his hair as if he had been running his hands through them. The composure was there, but it was constructed, a cunning artifice, and before he thought about it Bard found himself reaching out for Thranduil, pulling him into the house, into his arms.

Thranduil didn’t return the hug, but his forehead fell against Bard’s shoulder.

“I need to get back,” he said, quietly. “I have to call the builders, get them to come over. Talk to the insurance people. Cover up the hole in the wall with tarps so things don’t get wet if it starts raining again. I should clear up the glass, too – and lock up the valuables, in case anyone decides to take advantage and break-in.”

Bard let go with one arm, but only for long enough to push the front door closed behind them, shutting out the rush of the wind and the dying storm outside.

“Sit down in the kitchen,” Bard told him, not letting go until he felt Thranduil nod. “Do you have your phone? Good. You can make calls and figure out what to do with a coffee and some food. I’ll go tarp up the house and lock up anything you can think of. And get anything you three need. You should stay here until everything is secure at home again.”

“We can’t do that.”

“Of course you can,” Bard said, finally letting go and leading Thranduil through to the kitchen, where the kettle had just clicked off. “You’d do the same for me, and don’t bother trying to deny it. Now, is there any paperwork that you need me to get? Where are your important things? We should get them all secured.”

==============

Thranduil had finally relented, and Bard had left him with a borrowed jumper and the largest mug of coffee he could come up with as he went to the house with a list of things, Thranduil’s keys, and all the tarps and rope he could find in his garage (more than he had expected, actually – he wasn’t sure where most of them had even come from). Things were not quite as bad at Thranduil’s house as he had expected – in his head he had been picturing the entire house levelled by an enormous tree.

It was clear on entering the house what had actually happened – a small beech from the garden had been blown down by the wind and had gone straight through the kitchen window, smashing the glass everywhere and causing quite a lot of damage. The floors were soaked and there was glass littering the downstairs hallway. With a sigh Bard put his broom to use, sweeping up.

This sort of storm damage was not unheard of in the summer in this part of the country, and though he had never had it happen to him before, he had helped enough mates to know the importance of having help when trying to clear up. The fact that Thranduil had been intending to do it all by himself was a pretty clear indicator of what kind of man he was. It took Bard several hours to block up the window and collect the things that Tauriel and his children would need for the next few days, and by the time he returned home he was sweating, aching and tired.

“I’m home,” he called, when he got in. Bain and Tilda were at the dining table with Legolas and Tauriel, too deeply involved in a board game to do anything other than grunt in his direction distractedly. Sigrid however was in the kitchen, sat at the table with Thranduil. She was smiling at him in a soft, kind way that made her look so much like her mother for a moment that it made Bard’s chest hurt.

“I’ve got all the things,” he said, rather unnecessarily holding up the bags. “How has it gone here?”

“I need to meet the builders in a few hours,” Thranduil replied. “They’ll give me an estimate then. The insurance company have been notified. And I’ve drunk all my coffee, but mostly only because Sigrid came and told me off.”

She crossed her arms. “Well, you looked like you needed it. And since Dad wasn’t here to make you do it, it felt like my responsibility.”

Bard leant down and kissed the crown of her head. “Rightly so, my love. Would you mind watching the kids for us later so I can go with Thranduil to his house?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, and he ruffled her hair. “In return, you get to pick take out for dinner, how about that?”

“You don’t have to come with me,” Thranduil said, and though Bard sighed it was Sigrid who replied, her voice exasperated.

“You need to stop telling him not to help you,” she said. “That’s what my Dad _does._ He’s going to feel useless if he just sits here, and besides, he wants to help you because he cares. And you want the help, even if you don’t want to admit it because you feel like you shouldn’t. So, you are just going to go ‘round in circles until he ends up helping you anyway, and I’m going to have to listen to it for absolutely no reason.”

“That’s told you,” Bard said with a grin as he sat down, before resting his head against the surface of the kitchen table. “And she’s right, you know. I’d make a better argument for it myself, but I’m absolutely too tired right now.”

There was a soft touch against his shoulder, a warm hand far too large to belong to Sigrid.

“Your daughter is a lot like you,” Thranduil said, his words quiet and half disguised by the sound of the tap running and Sigrid placing the kettle back on its heating element. “In all the best possible ways.”

Bard found himself smiling against the table. Thranduil’s hand shifted slightly, his fingertips ghosting against the line of Bard’s throat, his heartbeat suddenly stuttering at the touch.

* * *

** September **

“Tilda, where is your backpack?”

His daughter’s voice called out sweet and clear from the upstairs bathroom, where she had been sent to brush her teeth but in reality was probably making some sort of toothpaste painting on the mirror. “I don’t know!”

Bard sighed, staring at the tangled mess of things by the front door hooks. “Is it in your room?”

“I said, I don’t know!”

“Well, go look for it when you are done in there, please. You need to find it for school tomorrow. Bain, where is your other school shoe?”

Bain’s face was buried in a magazine on the living room sofa. “What?”

“Only one of your school shoes are here.”

“Not my problem.”

“Well, it will be your problem tomorrow when you have to go around school with only one shoe on, won’t it?” Bard resisted the urge to hit his head against the wall. It was quite difficult. He was of the personal opinion that there was no worse part of a year than the two or three days before school started again, and everything conceivable went wrong.

“Well, where did you put it?” Bain asked him, with the slow voice teenagers reserved for adults that they thought were being stupid.

Bard stared at him. “It’s your shoe, I didn’t put it anywhere.”

Bain finally put the magazine down, staring at his father with a frown. “Maybe I left it somewhere?”

“Where would you leave it?”

“I don’t know.”

Bard resisted the urge to sigh audibly. “What, you think you might have just left a shoe somewhere and walked home without it without noticing?”

Bain said nothing, and Bard shook his head. “Go look for it, please.”

With some grumbling, his son made his way upstairs, dragging his feet behind him, and Bard made his way into the kitchen, trying to run through his list of things to find in his head. 

“Hey Dad,” Sigrid said, as she rinsed her coffee cup in the sink.

“What have you lost?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “I haven’t lost anything.”

“You do surprise me,” he said. She scowled, and he put his hands up apologetically. “That was mean, I am sorry. What’s wrong?”

“I’ve just checked my school things, and all of my tights have holes in. Can I go get the bus into town to pick up some more?”

Bard nodded. It was another problem, but at least it was one with a ready-made solution. “Sure. I’ll give you the money for them, but will you wait a bit? I might need you to pick something up for the other two, if I ever manage to figure out where all their things are. I’m almost certain that Bain will have lost his protractor and compass, and they are on the compulsory items list for this term.”

“Tilda’s P.E. kit is in her toy box,” she told him in a solemn voice. “I know you haven’t got that far yet, but I thought I’d save you the trouble.”

“What’s it doing there?”

“I don’t know? But that is where it is.”

Bard groaned. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Bain’s other shoe?”

“Can’t help with that one, sorry.” She was grinning at him, and he realised in moment of clarity that he would only have a few more years of this with her. It wouldn’t be long until she left school, left home, and his little house would have one less voice in it. He smiled at her, gently.

“Are you looking forward to going back?”

She shrugged. “Not really. It’ll be fine though. I just know I have to pick my A-Levels this year, and figure out a college or sixth form and all that, and I don’t know what I want to do yet. The teachers keep saying I have to think about what I want to study at University and pick A-Levels that fit with that, but I don’t have a clue.”

“Is there any kind of job you would like to have?”

“I don’t know, not really.”

Bard made a considering noise. “Then maybe just pick the subjects that you like the most and feel the most exciting about doing another few years of, and worry about university things when it comes to it.”

“You don’t want me to study anything in particular?”

He shook his head, as emphatically as possible. “I want you to do whatever makes you happy, and nothing else.”

“Thanks Dad,” she replied, and she shot him a look that he couldn’t quite read. “I want you to do the same, you know.”

“That’s an odd thing to say.”

She shrugged. “Are you seeing Thranduil this week?”

“I don’t know, probably.”

“Hmm. Maybe you should invite them over for dinner. Commiserate over going-back-to-school problems.”

“I’m sure Thranduil is far more organised than me.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “He probably knows where all his children’s shoes are.”

“Shut it, you.”

She blew him a kiss, and wandered out the kitchen door.

==============

“And did you ever find the shoe?” Thranduil asked, hiding his smile behind his hand. They had made it through the first week back, and Sigrid had offered to babysit, telling the two of them to go out and ‘stop worrying about things for a change’. They may have spent half their time talking about their children anyway, but Bard had to admit to feeling a bit better just for getting out the house.

“It was under his bed,” Bard said, “as all lost things turn out to be. However, it had lost its shoelaces, and he can’t remember why he took the shoelaces out or what has happened to them. But on the whole, I consider that a win.”

They were in a quiet restaurant, a small local one that wasn’t particularly atmospheric or well-decorated, but that cooked great food and had a reasonable wine list – and perhaps most importantly, was only a ten-minute walk from their street. But the lights were low and Thranduil had convinced him to have a whiskey, and now there was a warmth in his chest as Thranduil laughed that made him feel strange and alive.

“What about you?” he asked, smiling down at his plate. “Anything you couldn’t find?”

“Nope,” Thranduil said, “although it did take three hours to find Legolas’ tie – it turns out he had put it in his piggy bank, though lord only knows why.”

“Well, clearly to keep it safe.”

“Indeed. And we did manage to find something that had been lost.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes,” Thranduil said, his face serious as he leaned in a little, as if inviting a close confidence. “Legolas discovered the lunch box he had apparently lost in the move back in January. Complete with left over food still in it.”

“Oh no.”

“Needless to say, it went straight in the bin. I’ve never smelled anything like it.”

Bard grinned. “Well, it’s good to know that I’m not the only one that manages to drop the ball from time to time.”

“At least we have each other to commiserate,” Thranduil replied, and for a moment his fingers rested on the back of Bard’s hand, a gentle touch that was barely there, like so many of his others. But Bard didn’t want this one to end: as Thranduil withdrew Bard reached out, a little clumsily, tangling the ends of his fingers with Thranduil’s.

His mouth felt suddenly dry. He wasn’t really sure why he had done that, other than finding himself suddenly wanting to. But Thranduil didn’t pull back, or move away.

They sat there in a strange silence for a while, before the waiter came to clear their plates, and they pulled away from each other.

* * *

** October **

They hadn’t mentioned their dinner since. Bard wasn’t sure if they were avoiding talking about the situation, about the way their fingers had touched, how they had leant close to one another and then walked home with their hands tangled together, quiet, the silence between them full of unspoken questions. He couldn’t blame Thranduil for that – he wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk about it, either. He didn’t know what to say – didn’t, in fact, know what he wanted. It had been a long time since he had felt the pull towards someone else that he felt with Thranduil.

And he was afraid. He had to admit that. Afraid of what might happen, of what might go wrong, of how shifting what they were could change everything. And not just for them – for their children too.

“Dad, I want to be a cat for Halloween,” Tilda announced one morning, interrupting yet another period of staring out the window and thinking about things he didn’t know how to talk about. He blinked down at where she had appeared, clinging to his arm.

“Why a cat?”

“Because Tauriel is going as a witch and I want to be a cat, so we are matching.”

“Well, we don’t know if Tauriel will be trick-or-treating with you, love. She might be going out with other friends, or doing it somewhere else. So, we should talk to her first, okay?”

But Tilda shook her head emphatically. “I have talked to her, and she says I can come trick-or-treating with her, and I want to be a cat so we match!”

Bard rubbed his forehead.

“Alright then,” he said, mentally making a note to double-check that with Thranduil anyway, just to make sure. “What do you need?”

“Ears,” she told him, looking very satisfied with herself. “And a tail, and whiskers!”

“What colour cat do you want to be?”

She glared at him, clearly affronted. “I have to be a black cat for Halloween!”

“I suppose you do,” he told her, ruffling her hair. “I’ll see what I can do.”

She ran off, happy, and pulled out his phone, opening up the browser and having a brief look at costume options. He had learnt from past experience not to leave Halloween shopping too late. There was a crash from the front door as Sigrid and Bain returned from school, and he called them through before they had a chance to run upstairs.

“What do the two of you want to wear for Halloween?” he asked. “I’m ordering the things for Tilda’s costume now, so if there is anything you want, let me know.”

“I’m not dressing up,” Bain said, with a huff. “I’m not a kid, Dad.”

“I know you’re not, but neither am I, and I still dress up,” Bard pointed out, despite knowing that trying to argue this point was probably an error.

Bain scowled at him. “Yeah, but only lame adults dress up.”

Sigrid smacked the back of his head, although not too hard (she’d been told off enough about that in the past).

“I don’t need anything Dad,” she said. He wasn’t particularly surprised. They had traded off already – he would ferry her and her friends to and from a Halloween party at the weekend if she would stay in and deal with the trick-or-treaters on the day itself, which was mid-week this year. That would mean Bard could keep an eye on Tilda, and would also mean that he could make sure Sigrid got home safe. Normally she would complain about him worrying, but this time she felt like it was her decision and idea, and so was happy. He considered that peak-parenting. He assumed that she and her friends had coordinated some kind of costume, although he wasn’t sure whether he would understand the reference or not.

He ordered Tilda’s cat costume, and hesitated a moment before sending Thranduil a message.

_TO: THRANDUIL  
Do you know if Tauriel wants to trick-or-treat with Tilda?   
T says they’ve arranged it but I want to check.   
Don’t want her to feel like she has to/know she might have plans with friends?_

He turned his phone over and over in his hands, trying to convince himself to put it down and wander off, to be casual and to act like it didn’t matter to him whether Thranduil replied immediately or not. Luckily, he was saved from this dilemma by the buzz of his phone.

_FROM: THRANDUIL  
Tauriel says she wants her to come with her, and they have a plan.   
Apparently, Tilda is going to be a cat?_

Well, that was something of a relief, though Bard wasn’t sure if it was the news about Tauriel or Thranduil’s swift reply that had made him feel better.

_TO: THRANDUIL  
Just ordered the ears! Cheers :)_

It was difficult to know what to say to Thranduil over the phone. In person things seemed to work perfectly, natural, their conversations flowing with ease most of the time. But over the phone they seemed to be reduced to generalisations, to small talk and practicalities. There was nothing that special about it, and that made him feel very strange in turn.

_FROM: THRANDUIL  
Are you dressing up? I am, of course. _

_TO: THRANDUIL  
Can’t want to see that! Yeah, I always do.   
What are you going to be?_

_FROM: THRANDUIL  
Not a clue. Are you going to be walking around with Tilda?_

_TO: THRANDUIL  
Yeah, I can keep an eye on Tauriel if you like?   
Sigrid is staying in to give out the sweets. _

_FROM: THRANDUIL  
Sounds good, would appreciate it.   
As long as you stop by so I can see your costume.   
I wouldn’t want to miss it. I’m sure you’ll look terrific._

“Dad, what are you smiling at?” Sigrid asked, drawing Bard’s attention away from his screen. “Jeez Dad, and you tell us not to stare at our phones all the time. What is making you blush like that?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Bard said, shoving his phone in his pocket. “Now, how much do you want to bet that Bain will change his mind about Halloween?”

==============

“You know, you could have asked before you did that,” Bard said, trying hard not to laugh. “I could have given you an old one.”

Bain crossed his arms – or at least, Bard thought that he did. Given that he was covered head-to-toe in a bedsheet, it was a bit hard to tell. Bain had cut eye holes into it, but they were slightly wonky, giving Bain a rather demented look. Legolas, sitting on the sofa dressed as Hawkeye from the Avengers, just looked rather bored.

“I thought you didn’t want to trick-or-treat?” Sigrid said, a pair of devil horns stuck in her curly hair. “You could have told Dad you did, he’d have got you an actual costume.”

“I always wanted to be this,” Bain said, a little petulantly. “Not my fault if you just don’t get it.”

“What’s to get?” Bard asked, just as Bain stuck a label onto the front of his sheet that read ‘Sean Bean’. Bard snorted despite himself as Sigrid rolled her eyes. They were interrupted from what would no doubt have ended up with Bain in a huff by the clatter of the two girls upstairs. Tauriel’s black dress and pointed black hat were straight out of a classic fairy tale, and Tilda was beaming in her matching black dress, ears and tail. Tauriel had drawn whiskers on her face, and she looked delighted with herself.

“Right, time to go,” Bard said. He pulled a little self-consciously at his cloak, his tongue feeling the edge of the fake fangs stuck onto his incisors. The fake blood around his mouth felt sticky, and as they went from house to house he felt increasingly self-conscious, even as other parents complimented him. He knew he looked good in the tight black tunic, with his hair swept back neatly for once. But that didn’t seem to matter, particularly when they reached Thranduil’s house. There were pumpkins in the garden, and lights hanging from the windows, and as they walked up the driveway Bard realised exactly why he was feeling strange – he was nervous about seeing Thranduil, about Thranduil seeing him looking like this, about whether Thranduil would like it.

“Trick or treat!” the two girls and Legolas called out as the front door opened, Bain mumbling behind them.

And then Bard’s brain short-circuited.

Thranduil passed out sweets, the kids yelled thanks and started making their way back to the street, and Bard was still stood there, staring.

“It’s a good costume,” Thranduil murmured, looking him up and down appreciatively.

“You’re a pumpkin,” Bard said.

Thranduil spread his arms, showing off his full body orange smock. It was terrible and bright and so over the top Bard wanted to laugh aloud at the sight of it.

“Don’t you like it?” he asked.

“You look absolutely ridiculous,” Bard told him, already grinning so widely his cheeks hurt. “You are absolutely ridiculous. And absolutely incredible.”

“The kids are going to get away from you,” Thranduil said, smiling too. “You’re a very attractive vampire, but I’m not sure how much that would help you if you lost them.”

Bard smiled at him, following the group down the drive, but he kept looking back as he went. Thranduil stood there, in the doorway, watching him the whole time, and he was smiling too.

* * *

** November  **

Bard winced at the sound of the fairground rides as they approached the field.

“Right everyone,” he said, raising his voice to be heard. “Stay close, don’t wander, and if you do get lost go straight to the Helter Skelter, right? We’ll go and find you there. It’s the biggest ride, so you should always be able to see it.”

He wasn’t really sure how much the kids were paying attention, but they all nodded at him anyway. He couldn’t hold it against them, not really – he remembered the excitement of Bonfire night himself from when he was a child. There was something about that night in particular, the smell of bonfires in the air and rush of fireworks, the chill of the night air and the sounds and smells of fairgrounds. Even now they gave him a rush of excitement.

The kids had already decided which rides they wanted to go on with their allotted tokens on the way, and so Bard and Thranduil tagged after them as they went from one to the other. At some point Thranduil slipped his hand into Bard’s. They still hadn’t said anything, but in the few days since Halloween something had shifted between them, indistinct and indefinable. Bard knew they needed to talk about it – he wasn’t stupid, or naive. But he didn’t want to ruin things, not when Thranduil’s hand felt so comforting in his.

After the rides were done it was time for parkin and hot chocolate and cones of popcorn, all held in gloved hands – no doubt those gloves would be sticky and horrible by the end of the night, but Bard couldn’t say he minded. Then the bonfire lighting, the roar of the crowd as it cheered as the great pile went up in flames, the press of the crowd around them as they all moved closer to the barrier in union, feeling the heat of the flames against his skin. It was awkward to hold Thranduil’s hand now, they were pressed too close together, their shoulders touching, so instead, he slipped an arm around his lower back. Thranduil didn’t move away.

“Are the fireworks soon, Dad?” Tilda said from in front of him. She was twisting round to look up at him, the firelight catching the copper and gold in her hair, and he felt his heart swell at the sight.

“Pretty soon,” he told her, his free hand stroking the curls away from her face.

Legolas was in front of her, and Tauriel, and he realised with startling clarity that he loved the two of them, too. Perhaps not quite like his own children, not yet, but with something that came close to it, something that rapidly could turn into that, if things continued this way. Tauriel was watching him, her eyes bright, but Legolas was talking to Bain, the two of them with their heads leaning in together, intensely debating the merits of something that Bard couldn’t quite make out. And there was Sigrid, closer to Thranduil, talking to the other man quietly.

Her eyes flicked to him and he wondered what it was they were talking about.

But then came the hiss of the first rocket, and the crowd fell immediately silent around them a fraction of a second before the bang of the first one, the crackle as the second wave of lights showered down. He heard Tilda gasp with delight, right as Thranduil’s arm wrapped around his own back, his fingers slipping under the hem of Bard’s coat, under his jumper and shirt, the freezing cold press of bare fingertips sudden against the warm skin of his own back.

Another, a stream of red and gold, making Tauriel’s hair glow, warm and stoft.

Thranduil’s hand didn’t wander, he didn’t stroke or do anything else – it just rested there, as if Thranduil had wanted to feel Bard’s warmth, to feel the softness of his skin, and nothing else.

Greens, blues, purples. The crackle and roar and explosions. All of it fell away to nothing, turning strangely quiet as he looked at Thranduil, at the spill of his hair and the curve of his mouth, and his chest ached at the sight. There was something beautiful and wild about the harsh planes of his face in this kind of light, something that made him look otherworldly, a creature from another time or place. He had been downplaying his feelings, he knew that deep down, had been pretending that the strange life he had built alongside this man for the last year had been friendship but nothing more, had meant nothing deeper to him – and he couldn’t keep doing it.

He looked back at the sky just in time for the finale, champagne bubble explosions across the sky, filling everywhere in view.

* * *

** December **

And then, all of a sudden, they were back where they started, at the darkest days of the year. Nearly a year had passed since the morning Bard had stood at his window and watched the moving van unload the detritus of a life onto the pavement, but if felt like so much longer.

Christmas came every year with its own set of problems. Food shopping, present buying, sending cards and visiting relatives that you didn’t see at any other point in the year. There were carol concerts and Christmas films and days out. School nativity plays and end of term reports dominated all the other remaining time. But despite all of that, Bard couldn’t help but love the season: the excitement of the kids, the songs on the radio, the feel of the neighbourhood as they drew closer and closer to Christmas day. They got their Christmas tree, they spent a day decorating it and getting pine needles everywhere. The Christmas lights went up one by one down the street, each night growing brighter, and the mornings saw frost at the windowpanes, though no snow, not quite yet.

And soon it enough it was Christmas Eve, and despite his best intentions, Bard had not settled things with Thranduil. They hadn’t seen much of each other really, both busy with their families and traditions and the various tasks they had to achieve. But Thranduil was hosting the annual and traditional Christmas Eve street party, so Bard had known that, if nothing else, he would see him then.

He paid more attention than he would have liked to admit to his clothes, to his hair, pulling things this way and that before Tilda started to complain too loudly about going.

“Pull yourself together,” he told his reflection in the mirror.

The party was already in full swing by the time they got there, all the neighbours piled in the house together. The kids peeled away immediately at the sight of Tauriel and Legolas in a room that had clearly been designated the kids’ room for the night, leaving Bard feeling oddly exposed, without the buffer of his children. Thankfully he saved by an enthusiastic wave from Mrs Gununderson, a rather charming retired widow currently sat in a corner with a frankly enormous glass of port in hand. She was notorious on the street for making terrible biscuits, swearing in front of the children, and spying on everything that went on in the street from her living room window.

“Well, don’t you look handsome,” the old lady said, with a wink. “Are you trying to impress someone?”

“Only you, my dear,” Bard told her, smiling. He had a bit of a soft spot for her, and had done ever since he had watched her take out her false teeth to make Tilda laugh.

“You flirt,” she said, with a laugh. “Our host is in the kitchen, if you’re interested.”

Bard blinked, but she was grinning at him with a knowing look in her eyes. He didn’t bother to protest, just wished her well and promised to bring her the bottle of port if he came back through. He went to the kitchen, where Thranduil was propped up against the cabinets. The hum of music and conversation was loud, but they were the only ones in there, for which Bard found himself rather grateful when Thranduil looked at him.

“Hello,” he said, quietly. “I’m glad you came.”

There was something odd in his tone, and Bard frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Thranduil shrugged. “I wasn’t sure if you were avoiding me.”

“I wasn’t,” he said, and where he saw the doubt still in Thranduil’s gaze he continued. “I promise, I wasn’t. But I know we-”

He was cut off by Mr Parker from the far end of the street, who bustled into the kitchen behind Bard, his voice loud, cutting through their quiet conversation. “Sorry, where are the glasses?”

Thranduil pushed off the cabinets. “Let me show you.”

Bard sighed. That didn’t quite work the way that he had wanted to. Now unsure what he was supposed to be doing, he looked around the kitchen. The builders had replaced the window after the incident in the summer, and the ruined chairs in the corner had been re-upholstered, but otherwise it seemed to have survived its summer storm quite well. He rather wished he had that fortitude himself.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said, when Thranduil finally came back into the kitchen.

“You didn’t.”

Bard pulled a face. “It feels a little like I did.”

There was a moment of silence between them, and then Thranduil took a sharp breath.

“Forgive the force of my feeling,” Thranduil said, a little stiffly. “I’m afraid that once I care, I have a habit of caring too much.”

Bard didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t dealing with this well, and he knew desperately that he wanted to make it right. He was too hot, too flustered, but he took Thranduil’s hand, pulled him to the back door and into the garden, where it was dark and cold and much quieter, lit only by the fairy lights in the windows.

He turned. Thranduil was watching him, carefully, waiting for some sort of explanation.

And here was the truth of it, held tight inside his chest. Thranduil had moved onto his street a year ago, and in the months since had become his closest friend, his confidant, and perhaps something else, too. And he loved Thranduil, loved him with an intensity that he couldn’t put into words. He didn’t know when he had started to feel that ay or when he had even known it for certain, but it was true. He couldn’t imagine a life without Thranduil being in it. He had been afraid, for so many years, of what would happen the day all three of his children had moved out, moved on, but when he thought about that day now he wasn’t afraid, because he saw Thranduil there with him, and all five of their children coming back to visit.

He didn’t know how to say all that. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, his throat dry.

“Sometimes I think about when we’re old,” he said, instead. “My hair will have finally given up and turned entirely grey and you’ll be complaining about how cold you are. We’ll hold hands in bed every night when we fall asleep together and every morning I’ll make the coffee as you make the toast. If one of us reads a book the other will read it afterwards so we can talk about it. We’ll have a favourite blanket to sit under, and matching dressing gowns, and I’ll tell you that you drink too much and you’ll say I’m a pain in your arse. But we’ll be together.”

Thranduil was staring at him, his eyes soft.

“But here is the thing,” Bard said, quietly, and he leaned back against the wall, his breath misting in front of him. “If you’re not in the same place as me – if you feel differently about all of this, then I need to know. I think I’m at a point, now, where I have to do all or nothing. And I need to recalibrate my life with you not in it, if you can’t do that.”

Thranduil smiled. The fairy lights in the window made his hair glow, and the scars on his face looked impossibly soft.

“I can do that,” he said, and then he reached for Bard. His body was warm and right in Bard’s arms, the press of his kiss flavoured with the taste of mulled wine.


End file.
